north light

yes to the bare bone branches of a cold November morning

yes to the sun just creeping o’er the hill

yes to the pale blue pastels of the sun streaked daybreak

yes to the clouds looming with the promise of the snow

yes to mud in the fields and mud in the boots and mud at the foot of all my clothesyes to the tips of my fingers going numb
yes to driving with gloves on

yes to drinking soup for a heat at lunchtime

yes to the robin waiting hungry by the door

yes to the blackbird crashing noisy in the undergrowth

yes to the berries glowing darkly in the hedgerows

yes to poppy blood remembrance on the days of aching cold

yes to the fog of impossible to see

yes to the call of the geese heading south

yes to the patterns on the nettles on the first full frost of winter

yes to the nights drawing in

yes to the wheel ever turning

yes to harsh cold winter implacably approaching

yes to the sun setting on the fields of Galloway and the sky lit up with gold

yes to mist softly draped round the church in the hollow

yes to the last patch of gold as the oak points skyward

yes to the grace of the trees stripped bare

yes to crows cawing in the silhouette of branches

yes to gothic imagination in the mist filled skies

yes to finger numbing bone aching cold of the mornings

yes to the days that swallow autumn

yes to the gold grey cold grey skies of

November

I don’t know if it’s because poetry is the language of rebels, artists and mavericks,

confounding expectations, breaking rules and saying this, this is how things might be

or maybe that at times of the deepest emotion, we turn as if by instinct,

back to poetry

Of course perhaps it’s the invitation to play, to dance, to make words sing or

simply that we need to express a deeper truth

Perhaps it’s because we understand that poems are born from the words of the heart

or maybe, as one who’s found this,

that once you get started you can make your own rules

And yet I know it’s not form, it’s that some things are too beautiful,

or too terrible,

not to be spoken in verse

Which means I believe to my core that

however much some poems baffle us,

others can reach us at the most human, most universal level

and that we are human, and long to say:

this, this is how it was for me.

and we will keep exploring and experimenting with ways to say it, share it, make you feel it too

Or maybe it’s simply that poetry has a pulse.

and sometimes we need reminders of how it feels to be alive.